Inquiry into the causes of the motion of the blood : with an appendix, in which the process of respiration and its connexion with the circulation of the blood are attempted to be elucidated / by James Carson, M.D.

  • Carson, James, 1772-1843.
Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inquiry into the causes of the motion of the blood : with an appendix, in which the process of respiration and its connexion with the circulation of the blood are attempted to be elucidated / by James Carson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    the circulation of the blood is in many respects different before birth, from that in which it is afterwards, it is proposed to conclude this ap- pendix with a brief examination, of these organs as they exist in the foetus. The lungs of the child before birth are at all times in a state of complete collapse; their specefic gravity is greater than that of water; the'bronchia and air cells contain no air; and the dimension which these organs fill, are less than those into which they can be compressed after a single inspiration by any force which does not destroy their fabric. The part of the chest which is after birth, occupied by the expanded lungs, is before that event tilled by the thymus gland, which is very large in the foetus, by the heart, aud principally by the greater dimensions of the cone formed by the diaphragm, which swells up with a high convexity into the thorax. The liver which is also very large in the foetus and other abdominal viscera, following the ascent of the diaphragm, occupy a higher place in the trunk of the body- before than after the commencement of respira- tion.